Reviews, Interviews, Opinions

When I first sat down with Anobium V3: Noospheria, I struggled to figure out the proper approach for the collection.  From the opening pages, it sparked my interest and intrigue, but remained elusive and hard to define.  Was this a themed anthology, a themed quarterly, or something else entirely?  Did the editors curate the collection, or did they sift through a slush pile?  Not that any of this really matters when it’s all said and done, but it’s helpful for me to find some sort of ground to stand on before approaching the titles I review. 

The editors must have known they were working with such an ephemeral subject, because the first line tells you everything you need to know about the term 'Noospheria,' its definition: “(n) cosmology: a fragment of the universe that is enacted by human thought, culture, and knowledge.”  And that’s the best way to think about it: in literal terms.  Anobium V3 is an amorphous collection of self-meditative work, refusing the boundaries of our taxonomical system of classification; it is simply what is stated on the full page spread, written in black and white water color: Noospheria. 

Anobium V3 is divided into five sections: "Documentation," "Arbitration," "Interjection," "Confabulation," and "Collusion."  

It isn’t very often that I have time to read outside of my genre, so when Kevin Haworth’s Famous Drowning of Literary History from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography landed in my inbox a couple of months ago (I know, I’m behind) I was both excited and skeptical.  My favorite kind of creative nonfiction is less memoir and more journalistic reporting (think Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer).  Essays that transport the reader to a place, situation, time, or culture that is outside of usual understanding or experiences and, consequently, open the door to understanding and empathy hold the most power for me.  It is for this reason that I read creative nonfiction. 

Famous Drownings in Literary History, coined “Essays on 21^st Century Jewishness” by the publisher, is a collection of fifteen essays and micro-essays—each fully embodying the narrator’s personal history, reporting in the vein of New Journalism, and the tenets and practices of the Jewish faith.  Haworth is a master craftsman in his execution in weaving these elements though his essays, and as the reader makes his or her way from one piece to the next the Jewish faith is seen more fully: not just the what or how, but the why. 

“Cut,” the

Good fiction is a lot like traveling—you get to immerse yourself in something foreign and hopefully come away from the experience with a new perspective.  In the pages of a book you can take a trip to a present shaped by an alternate history and questions of what if, or fast forward to a ravished post-apocalyptic future, or heed the warnings of a dystopia set in the past.  You can travel to a town you’ve never been, hear the thoughts and insights of a person you didn’t know before you set out.  As readers, this is what we’ve come to expect from the scope of fiction: to be transported to places we’ve never been. 

Jason Lee Norman’s debut takes you there.  It’s a literary road trip through an Americas you’ve never seen—one that’s escaped the history books.  Discover a Canada “where they teach Canadian history to their people in dramatic vignettes that air between commercials during Jeopardy reruns”—and then make your way south through the United States and Mexico and into Central and South America.  In some countries you will stay for a while; in other countries your trip will be brief. 

Long or short, the stops in Americas are all memorable tales, like an unexpectedly meeting a local at a bar nestled along a whitewa

Amber Sparks, one of today's freshest literary fiction voices, is a self- proclaimed homebody with a rich fantasy life and a penchant for food she doesn’t have to cook herself.  Educated in the theatre, Sparks spent some time after college acting and directing, only to leave that world when her hero, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, passed away.  Motivated to do something bigger, she moved to Washington, DC, where she went to graduate school for political communications.  Living with her husband and cats, she now works for a labor union, directing their online communications team—a job she says is both fun and rewarding—where she is able to fight for the workingman and against income equality.

Amber sat down with me over Google Chat (oh, thank you technology!) to talk about her debut story collection, May We Shed These Human Bodies, out now from us, Curbside Splendor Publishing. 

Tweet

Andrew Farkas was born in Akron, Ohio, and grew up there. He is the author of various pieces of fiction, some of which have appeared in Northwest Review, New Orleans Review, Whiskey Island, Emprise Review and The Brooklyn Rail. He currently lives in Chicago. He is the author of a collection of short fictions, Self-Titled Debut (winner of the 2008 Subito Press Prize for Experimental Fiction).

Tweet

Curbside Splendor: Okay, first of all, tell me really quickly why you like drinking at the Flat Iron.

Andrew Farkas: First, it was a bar that I found on my own when I first showed up to Chicago. I liked the music that was playing, and I liked that I could go in there at 7pm and get a seat with no problem.